As a kind of a technique that forms a film on a substrate, a plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition (PE-ALD) method is known. In the PE-ALD method, the substrate is exposed to a precursor gas to chemically adsorb the precursor gas containing constituent elements of a thin film. Subsequently, the substrate is exposed to a purge gas to remove the precursor gas excessively chemically adsorbed to the substrate. In addition, the substrate is exposed to plasma of a reaction gas containing constituent elements of a thin film so as to form a desired thin film on the substrate. In the PE-ALD method, the above-described processes are repeated, so that a film processed by atoms or molecules contained in the precursor gas is generated on the substrate.
As an apparatus that performs the PE-ALD method, a single substrate type film-forming apparatus and a semi-batch type film-forming apparatus are known. In the single substrate type film-forming apparatus, the aforementioned process of the PE-ALD method is repeated in a single processing chamber. That is, in the single substrate type film-forming apparatus, the precursor gas is supplied into the single processing chamber, subsequently, the purge gas is supplied into the processing chamber, then, the reaction gas is supplied into the processing chamber, and plasma of the reaction gas is generated. Further, in the single substrate type film-forming apparatus, the purge gas is supplied into the processing chamber after generation of the plasma of the reaction gas and before subsequent supply of precursor gas. In the single substrate type film-forming apparatus, the supply of the precursor gas, the supply of the purge gas, the generation of the plasma of the reaction gas, and the supply of the purge gas need to be performed in sequence temporally as described above. Thus, a throughput becomes comparatively lowered.
Meanwhile, in the semi-batch type film-forming apparatus, a precursor gas-supplied region and a reaction gas plasma generation region are separately formed in the processing chamber and a substrate moves to pass through the regions in this order. In the semi-batch type film-forming apparatus, the supply of the precursor gas and the plasma generation of the reaction gas may be simultaneously performed in different regions. Thus, a throughput is higher than that of the single substrate type film-forming apparatus. Such a semi-batch type film-forming apparatus is described in Patent Documents 1 to 3.
As disclosed in Patent Documents 1 to 3, a semi-batch type film-forming apparatus includes a space in a processing container divided into a first region and a second region in a circumferential direction, in which plasma of a reaction gas is supplied into the second region. Further, the film-forming apparatus includes a placing table having a plurality of placing regions arrayed in the circumferential direction. The film-forming apparatus is configured to rotate the placing table around an axis in a processing container such that a substrate passes through the first region and the second region in sequence.